What makes a great webcomic?

[falconire]

What makes you want to read the comics you read regularly? Is it the artwork, the writing, the jokes, boobs? Okay, half the people here are probably reading for the boobs.

[Friv]

For me, the writing is the biggest draw. Artwork needs to be at least viewable, so that I know what is going on at any given time, but I'll keep reading a comic with mediocre art and great writing, and not so much a comic with mediocre writing and great art.

What that means depends on the comic. Pacing is pretty critical if it's not just gag-a-day. If it is, the gag has to be consistently funny. If the comic can't figure out what tone it wants to set, that's also a problem (comics can have more than one tone, see Order of the Stick for an obvious example, but they need to know to set the balance right off.)

[chiasaur11]

Agreed on writing.

I mean, look at XKCD. Stick figures, and it's insanely successful, and usually very good.

Being able to reliably tell a good joke tends to make a webcomic worth reading.

[Drakyn]

I'd say "the ability to update, if not reliably, then frequently" as a huge draw, but even this necessarily isn't even so. When was the last time OotS had a regular, strict update schedule?

[Evil DM Mark3]

In order to really get my attention it needs to have at least 5 of 7 things.

Appropriate art (not good art, art that fits and is as good as the author can make it, Schlock is a good example of what I mean. The art is not great but has gotten better over the years and does its job well.)
Cleverness. It has to be different and different in an thought provoking way.
Humility. Nothing kills my enthusiasm faster than comics that have "I AM MAKING A POINT" stamped on them.
Interesting characters. Not nessicerily deep, well rounded or even sane but Interesting.
Updates reliably. I hate not knowing how long I have to wait.
Verisimilatude. If the comic does not have internal logic then I cannot follow it.
Well written. Present in all my fav comics.


The only exception is Dominic Deegan, Oracle for hire. I followed that for a while last year out of pure, raw, bile facination (despite or indeed because it failed on points 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7) before it got too terrible even for me.

[Helanna]

I'd say good writing is most important. I read a lot of webcomics, from all different art styles and qualities, and like many others I don't mind reading something with mediocre art, but I will not read something with bad writing. (Except for snarking purposes).

Like Friv said, if the comic is gag-a-day, it has to be funny at least most of the time, and if it's dramatic, the pacing has to be good. I hate it when webcomic arcs drag on forever without actually accomplishing anything.

Although sometimes whether I read a comic or not is totally arbitrary. I tried reading Girl Genius a couple of times and stopping after a few pages for no real reason. Then I tried again and now it's one of my favorite comics.

[T-O-E]

Should be interesting and original, with good writing and well-rounded characters.

Humour's a bonus.

[The Dark Fiddler]

My favorites make me laugh regularly. A bonus if they make fun of something, or frequently use/avert/subvert tropes, now that I've become familiar with the drug that is TV Tropes.

[Raz_Fox]

Characters. Characters. CHARACTERS.

Most of the webcomics I frequent I do so mainly because I fell in love with the characters: Secret and Misho, Quentyn, Gilgamesh and the Jaegers, Antimony and Reynardine...

Humor is the other really big draw for me, but it's characterization that sticks with me.

[Zadus]

Quality. That's a really vague answer, but its really all a comic needs. Solid writing, decent artwork, good characters and an original concept all make a quality comic. XKCD is only stick figures, but he makes good stick figures, it's well written and there is nothing quite like it. I also have a soft spot for programming jokes.

A regular update schedule is also important. I really like to go and look up my comics on day X and know there will be a new one.

Then again, if I honestly had a solid grasp on making webcomics, I'd be signing t-shirts somewhere.

[theMycon]

Characters. Characters. CHARACTERS.

I agree completely. I like characters who interact, grow, and perhaps even have you come to care about them. Humor & art help, writing's a great thing, but... having characters who you can get attached to make it great.

ALSO... since you named two of my three favorite webcomics there... Where are "Secret & Misho" from? and Quentyn? In exchange for this, I give you my other favorite, Errant Story (http://www.errantstory.com). And for kicks, I'll recommend the first chapter of Nowhere Girl (http://www.nowheregirl.com/)

[MacPuck]

Really subjective topic. For me, priorities fall:

Concept - here's how you hook people. Catch their attention with your basic plot. It can be exotic or mundane; it's all in how you sell it.

Characters - These are what readers remember. Your setting might be amazing, and your plot might be the most original thing ever, but people relate to people.

Writing - Steady pace and dialogue - it can be witty or not, but it should fit the theme.

Frequency - Honestly, this depends on the above. I'm more forgiving of comics that excel in the above, and I assume they take longer because they want to get it right. Frequent updates can make up for somewhat lower quality.

Art - Eye candy is all well and good, but I'm no artist, so I'd feel guilty calling anyone out on it.

[falconire]

I'm going to agree on the writing, slightly over the art. I used to read Questionable Content regularly, but it just didn't go anywhere, even know the art is fantastic, but I lost interest in it. Currently I'm getting into Girls with Slingshots, Goblins, and Not Another Fantasy Gamer Comic. The last two the art is perfect (with NAFGC it's not meant to be), but the characters have grown on me (especially Senor Vorpal Kickasso!)

[Rockphed]

In order to really get my attention it needs to have at least 5 of 7 things.

Appropriate art (not good art, art that fits and is as good as the author can make it, Schlock is a good example of what I mean. The art is not great but has gotten better over the years and does its job well.)
Cleverness. It has to be different and different in an thought provoking way.
Humility. Nothing kills my enthusiasm faster than comics that have "I AM MAKING A POINT" stamped on them.
Interesting characters. Not nessicerily deep, well rounded or even sane but Interesting.
Updates reliably. I hate not knowing how long I have to wait.
Verisimilatude. If the comic does not have internal logic then I cannot follow it.
Well written. Present in all my fav comics.


The only exception is Dominic Deegan, Oracle for hire. I followed that for a while last year out of pure, raw, bile facination (despite or indeed because it failed on points 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7) before it got too terrible even for me.

I'm going to steal this list. My favorite comics are Schlock Mercenary, Girl Genius, and probably OotS, though Rich doesn't update enough for me. When I rule the world, I will chain Rich up in a well apportioned apartment and force him to produce an update every day. Muwahahahahahahaha! Seriously, the lack of update schedule for OotS would be annoying if I didn't spend most of my online time on GitP. As it is, new updates are just icing on the cake of goodness that is GitP.

Personally, the one thing I would do is move 5 up to first place. If a comic has a schedule posted, I expect them to, at the least, follow their schedule from time to time. The other option, in my mind, is to have the whole thing completed. I love completed comics that actually feel done at the end. Comics that have bad endings or just leave off in the middle of a scene with no update in sight are bad and their creators had better have a good excuse(say, having a kid). If they don't, they will be forced to

I guess this ties into good endings, I prefer comics that either have no plot, like XKCD, or have good pacing for their plots, like GG, Schlock or OotS.

[Evil DM Mark3]

Personally, the one thing I would do is move 5 up to first place.Alphabetical list is alphabetical...

[Raz_Fox]

I agree completely. I like characters who interact, grow, and perhaps even have you come to care about them. Humor & art help, writing's a great thing, but... having characters who you can get attached to make it great.

ALSO... since you named two of my three favorite webcomics there... Where are "Secret & Misho" from? and Quentyn? In exchange for this, I give you my other favorite, Errant Story (http://www.errantstory.com). And for kicks, I'll recommend the first chapter of Nowhere Girl (http://www.nowheregirl.com/)

Secret and Misho are from Keychain of Creation (http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0001.html), an Exalted-based webcomic a lot like OOTS.

Quentyn is from Tales of the Questor (http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/00001.html).
...No, just get through the first five pages. It gets better. Honest.

[Mauve Shirt]

The most important part is the writing. I prefer story comics to gag-a-day, so the characters and plot matter. The only gag-a-day I read regularly is xkcd, because it's usually clever and funny. I dislike shock comics that use vulgarity as the main source of humor.

[PumpkinJack]

Story is the most important to me. I suppose that's what most people mean by writing. And the story has to go somewhere. I don't know how many webcomics I gave up on as it became obvious that the story was going nowhere and the writer/artist had no idea how to craft a story that did go somewhere. Good art helps, of course but I'm not expecting comic-quality.

[theMycon]

Secret and Misho are from Keychain of Creation (http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0001.html), an Exalted-based webcomic a lot like OOTS.

Quentyn is from Tales of the Questor (http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/00001.html).
...No, just get through the first five pages. It gets better. Honest.

Why, thank ya kindly, sir. Keychain's halfway through the archives and it... started slow, but picked up quite nicely.

[Raiser Blade]

actually updating is only an issue if the comic succeeds in the other points

[Evil DM Mark3]

actually updating is only an issue if the comic succeeds in the other pointsDom-an-ic De-gan

[T-O-E]

Dom-an-ic De-gan

Least I Could Do.

[Rockphed]

actually updating is only an issue if the comic succeeds in the other points

You have a point. I guess I haven't put as much thought into this as I thought I had. As noted there are some total pieces of trash that update every day(DD), while there are some great works of art that don't even have a schedule for updating(OotS). Anybody care to explain to this addled barbarian how important actually updating is?

[Trazoi]

Anybody care to explain to this addled barbarian how important actually updating is?
It's actually rather important, at least for me. Webcomics that update frequently and/or regularly are more, well, "alive". There's always something new. There's a reason to keep visiting the site frequently. And it also helps paper over any wrinkles in quality, because even if you don't like one update there's going to be another soon.

And in terms of content, a comic that updates every single day has seven times more in its archive per year than one that just updates every week. The weekly update has to be seven times better to match. It depends how well the balance between quantity and quality works of course.

[Raiser Blade]

You have a point. I guess I haven't put as much thought into this as I thought I had. As noted there are some total pieces of trash that update every day(DD), while there are some great works of art that don't even have a schedule for updating(OotS). Anybody care to explain to this addled barbarian how important actually updating is?

Updating's importance is directly proportional to how good the comic is.

[T-O-E]

Not exactly.

[X2]

I like the writing. I can stand doodles as long as I like the characters and the plot.

But I don't like artwork so bad you can hardly tell what's going on.

[Weimann]

I'm not one to overanalyze comics. I like what I like and I'm generally not terribly good at explaining why.

As an example, I am a fan of Dominic Deegan. Despite recognizing it's flaws, there are just something about it that makes me genuinely like it. Probably the humour, the characters and the frequent injectoins of pure awesome.

As a counterpart, I've tried several times with Girl Genius and just can't get it to work. I can see the qualities: INCREDIBLY wellwritten, characters that kick royal butt, well done artwork... but it doesn't stick. Logically I should like it, but I just don't.

*looks up* Whew, that was a long disclaimer. My point is, it's hard to have a recepie for a good comic, but I've been able to dicern a few frequent qualities that regularly show up in comics I like (this will, in much, be a repetition of what has already been said).

Gag-a-day comics:
# Jokes.
# Manuscript.
# Characters.
# Updates.

Story comics:
# Storyline.
# Manuscript.
# Characters.
# Jokes.
# Awesome.
# Updates.

In that order.

I will also concur that boobs help (see, for example, Ménage à 3, which is a story comic relying on Character, Jokes, Updates and Boobs).

[Indon]

If something about it piques my interest.

Offhand, anything less vague would not be consistent with the variety of webcomics I read and degrees with which I am interested in them.

I'll think more on it.

[RedScholarGypsy]

Secret and Misho are from Keychain of Creation (http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0001.html), an Exalted-based webcomic a lot like OOTS.

Quentyn is from Tales of the Questor (http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/00001.html).
...No, just get through the first five pages. It gets better. Honest.

I never heard of Tales of the Questor before. I'm to where Quentyn has gone into the gilden flagon. Curse you Raz_fox for feeding my webcomic addiction. Curse you with all that you ever desire. :smallamused:

And thank you. :smallbiggrin:

[Rockphed]

Secret and Misho are from Keychain of Creation (http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0001.html), an Exalted-based webcomic a lot like OOTS.

Quentyn is from Tales of the Questor (http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/00001.html).
...No, just get through the first five pages. It gets better. Honest.

I agree with RedScholar, and will now express it properly:

RAAAAAAAAAZ_FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!

[cdrcjsn]

Writing is also what hooks me into a comic.

Pretty pictures might attract someone, but it's the writing that makes someone into a fan.

Strangely enough, if you ask this same question among other webcomic creators, I've found that most will say "writing, of course" but turn around and secretly judge each other's work based on the art.

Another big one for me is ease of accessibility. If a comic doesn't have an RSS feed, then the chance of me following it drops down to almost zero. I think the only strip that I follow that doesn't have an RSS feed is Girls With Slingshots, and even then I tend to only visit the site once every few weeks to catch up on what I've missed.

[Glass Mouse]

Personally, I don't demand much from the artwork. It can lift a comic from good to great (seriously, a comic like Phoenix Requiem is just... stunning), but it's the characters that hook me.
How? Hmm...

Characters shouldn't:
...be kliché or stereotypical (can be okay for gag-a-day but gets old really really fast).
...be too pathetic or angsty (angst is good, wangst is... just plain annoying).
...all be stunningly beautiful (pet peeve of mine, feel free to disagree).

Characters should:
...have more-or-less detailed personal histories.
...have likes and dislikes, convictions and personal beliefs.
...in the same vein; act consistently.
...have details or quirks (makes them non-generic).
...relate to their surroundings realistically.
...have both qualities and drawbacks (*cough*Mary Sue*cough*).
...evolve throughout the story.

There are probably more. But what do I know, anyway? My own comic isn't near good enough to even have a readership :smalltongue:

Edit: To you who said that, and out of curiousity - what do you mean by "writing"? Story, pacing, dialogue, setting, other? And in that case, what is "good writing"? Just curious :smallsmile:

[Horst]

Cleverness. It has to be different and different in an thought provoking way.
Humility. Nothing kills my enthusiasm faster than comics that have "I AM MAKING A POINT" stamped on them.
Interesting characters. Not nessicerily deep, well rounded or even sane but Interesting.
Well written. Present in all my fav comics.



I totally second this.

But I like to add a few points.

Very important:
Readability. Some Comics have a so over-exaggerated art-style and tiny or extravagant fonts in their Speechbubbles, that it is hard to follow the Story and to not overlook some words.

Another thing are annoying self-referenzes. If a comic is well-known and over 200 strips, you could start to make self-references. But some do so in their first pages.



Characters shouldn't:
...be kliché or stereotypical (can be okay for gag-a-day but gets old really really fast).


I would like to veto. Most of the good web comics characters are strongly stereotypical. I mean, all of the main characters of Oots are kliché. That doesn't mean that they are flat or onesided, but I am pretty sure that they all are stereotypes of their classes. Same goes for 8-bit theatre. You can not say, that these got old really fast.

[Jigsaw Forte]

In order of what I think makes a good webcomic (because I try to do this stuff with my own webcomic):


Reliable Updates - There's a comic I read that's gathered a small hatedom, Suicide for Hire (http://suicideforhire.comicgenesis.com) (Basically, the SAW movies, but with furries in it), which, in spite of its heavy-handedness and everything else, I continued to read until:
the schedule dropped to once a week, couldn't even seem to decide which DAY of the week it updated save that it updated at some point that week, and every now and then instead of precious, precious plot, it included one of the main characters bitching about Michael Jackson or the Health Care town halls or whatever political outrage du jour was involved this week. I'm sorry, that's the last damned straw. It's one thing to hit me over the head with your very important opinions, it's another to do so as a goddamn non-sequitur in place of a real update!
Lesson Learned: I can handle walls of text, I can handle slow updates, I can't handle not being able to set my damned morning coffee plugin to tell me when to read your comic. I may only post once a week, sure, but I have Wordpress to buffer out and schedule my updates, so at least everyone involved knows what damn day of the week to come see the new comic.
An RSS Feed with the Comic inside the Feed - Especially needed if you can't keep a proper schedule. This isn't hard, Wordpress/ComicPress can do it for you, but it's part of that whole "Being considerate to your readers" thing.
Consistant Writing - Again, this isn't saying you need a storyline, but if you're going to be a gag a day, you need to make sure your gags are all up to a certain standard.
Clear, Readable Text - Don't make it too tiny, don't make it impossible to read, and don't make it Comic Sans. Is that too much to ask?
Clear, Readable Artwork - Same idea. I don't care what you draw, save that when you draw a steampunk badger having a spot of tea, I can TELL it's a steampunk badger having a spot of tea.
Humor - Not always necessary, but if there's no payoff to reading each page, it's going to be a hard sell.
A Domain Name - This is just part and parcel of taking yourself seriously. Come on, guys, they're ten bucks a year. TEN BUCKS. You'd spend more money taking yourself and a friend to the movies. Isn't a year's worth of credibility and professionalism worth ten bucks to you? And if hosting is a concern, that's only $60 a year. You spend more on an XBox360 game! Come on, buy some dignity!
A Navigable Web Site - If I can't get to your latest comic and/or its archives, you suck. Unless the point of the site is that you're supposed to refresh and get a new comic (which really only works if it's meant to be a randomizer or a computer-generated comic like Mezzacotta in the first place), if I can't see older comics, you have failed on so many levels it's not funny.


This is not difficult, and yet you'd be amazed how many people fail at this...

[Jahkaivah]

Humility. Nothing kills my enthusiasm faster than comics that have "I AM MAKING A POINT" stamped on them.

Particularly strawmen comics... which fail to even make a point

[t_catt11]

One thing that I need is a creator who understands that they are doing a COMIC - something that should be pretty light-hearted. Not a UN-sanctioned re-education mission. Sanctimonious webcomics creators grate on me, and I will not return to their strips.

I agree with the point above that many comic creators claim to judge on writing, but seem to look down their noses at one another's art.

I'm in the camp of "if it's funny and/or well written, I only need passable art". And honestly, if it's neither funny *nor* well-written, beautiful art wears thin rather quickly.

[T-O-E]

A Domain Name - This is just part and parcel of taking yourself seriously. Come on, guys, they're ten bucks a year. TEN BUCKS. You'd spend more money taking yourself and a friend to the movies. Isn't a year's worth of credibility and professionalism worth ten bucks to you? And if hosting is a concern, that's only $60 a year. You spend more on an XBox360 game! Come on, buy some dignity!

I don't really see the problem with using a free host.

[Trazoi]

I don't really see the problem with using a free host.
I agree with Jigsaw Forte that having your own domain name gives your comic an extra level of respectability. It gives the webcomic a short, memorable home of it's own if its address is billed as webcomicname.com instead of webcomicname.freecomichost.com. Plus it's a small sign that this is a somewhat serious hobby for the creator. And from a practical side, it allows the creator to move hosts without causing all their links to break.

Obviously there are plenty of exceptions on both sides, but it's something I'd add to the checklist. It's a bit like using Comic Sans in a webcomic - it can work (example: OotS uses it to mostly good effect), but in general most Comic Sans webcomics use it because they didn't put much thought into the font choice - which is why it now has a reputation as the "crappy webcomic font".

(Oh, and don't use Arial either. Or, god forbid, Times New Roman :smalltongue:).

[T-O-E]

Urgh, comic sans.

I'm working on a webcomic and I'd like your opinion:
Is verdana okay? Or should I just download a font from Blambot? I like verdana.

[Trazoi]

I'm working on a webcomic and I'd like your opinion:
Is verdana okay? Or should I just download a font from Blambot? I like verdana.
It depends on the comic. If you try a few fonts out, maybe get a few outside opinions, and you find that Verdana just happens to give the perfect look for your particular comic, then I'd say go with it. The only property a font absolutely requires is that it is readable (i.e. never, ever use a decorative font for dialog if you can't read it clearly at small sizes!).

The biggest issue I'd have with a comic using Verdana is that it's the standard vanilla web font used virtually everywhere online. I don't think you can escape the "this feel like a web page" vibe if you use Verdana. That might just be what you want, depending on your webcomic - but usually it isn't.

Familiarity is one reason why I'd think twice about using any font that's usually installed on a PC - basically, any of the core fonts for the web that everyone uses over and over again. They're good fonts (or mostly if you hate Comic Sans :smallbiggrin:), but they're used everywhere so they now seem very generic.

[Surrealistik]

Non-sequitur humour.

[artistInTheCode]

I would have to say that a commonality in most all of these posts is that the web comic creator has to have made his/her webcomic a priority. From what I can tell from every web comic that I read regularly, the creators go out of their way to update their comic, make improvements to the site, or otherwise contribute to their community to make it an environment readers want to come back to.

This contribution can come in witty scripts resulting in laughs, beautiful art that keeps people coming back for more, hard work and dedication to add features their users want, etc. Whatever form this devotion comes in, it's always apparent that the good webcomic creators actually care enough to make their comic an important part of their life. I think that's the most important part of a webcomic.

[Harr]

For me it's the same things that make a TV show worth watching: Plot, Characters, Dialogue, Humor. That's it. I don't watch TV or movies for the effects, and I don't read webcomics for the art. It's all about the writing for me.

When I think about a comic and a show that both exemplify what I mean by those four things I think of OOTS and Gunnerkrigg for the comic and Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog for the show (even though it was web-based, I still consider better than pretty much anything else on TV... if I had to choose a literal TV show I would choose Chuck, I guess).

[YHuntressE]

I think the creator needs to separate themselves from their main character, because I've seen far too many that have made their comic their own personal masterbation session or bases a character who is someone who wronged them and turns that character into the author's personal punching bag. You Damn Kid did a good job even though the story was based off his life because he wasn't afraid to make himself have bad moments and didn't knock down others.

[Atronach]

What I think makes a great webcomic is good plots, decent dialogue, and if it is humorous, all the more reason to read.

[Turcano]

I don't really see the problem with using a free host.

Let me put it this way: what's the first thought that comes to mind when you see "comicgenesis.com" or "drunkduck.com?" If that first thought isn't "steaming turd," either you haven't had any experience with comics on said sites or there may be something wrong with you and you should have that checked.

[T-O-E]

Oh, I have seen the worst of the worst on those sites. And the rare decent strip.
I just don't group comics together by the site they're hosted on.

[PhantomFox]

I think he's saying it's easier to find a gem when it's in a jeweler's shop then in the dump.

[Trazoi]

It's more the negative impression potential readers may get if they see you're using a free host. If you're promoting your webcomic on a forum and I see it's from a free host, the first thing that goes through my mind is "probably less that four strips in the archive, and is unsure if they'll be continuing next month". In the vast majority of cases, it appears that the reason for going for the free host is that the creator hasn't put much thought or work into their product. That impression rubs off on anyone else who uses the host.

[Kurald Galain]

Just to post a counterargument, a great webcomic is one that doesn't fall for the Seven Sins of Webcomics. Yeah, I took that from YWIBAYSFB, but I like it anyway.

What are those sins? Well...
(1) Lust: the comic exists only or primarily as a vehicle for fanservice
(2) Gluttony: the comic exists only or primarily because the author wants attention and compliments
(3) Greed: the comic's creator does excessive donation runs and so forth so that quality comes after making a cheap buck or two
(4) Sloth: copy/paste art, google image search backgrounds, cliche plots, lack of character depth, and other signs of a lazy creator
(5) Wrath: the creator gets into flame wars with other comics and/or people who dare express criticism of his comic
(6) Envy: I've never actually seen that one, and YWIB only has a vague description
(7) Pride, of course: the creator thinks he's god and flaunts this at every opportunity.

Okay, so missing all those might not make a comic great - but too many comics fall into several of those sins, and that's a sure sign that they're not great.